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The Circle Story

It all began with a line. Yes, a stupid line. Not that the line was really stupid, people just thought it to be so. Why, one might ask.

For one,the line was remarkably straight. And quite tall. It needed very little space. But there were a few problems. It lived in a not-so-straight world. It stood out. Awkwardly. People pointed at it, they laughed at it. The line felt left out and embarrassed, but it was much too gentle to say anything. Maybe I am an odd-ball and my friends are too decent to tell me that, it reasoned. Maybe they are scared of being poked, it thought. It stood awkward,confused and alone in the middle of the crowd.

One day, it decided to change. Now all this wasn’t sudden,mind you. Its friends always said that it should turn to a more amiable, more friendly, less poky shape. Maybe they mean well, it reasoned. Maybe I should give it a shot. But what should it become ? It thought and thought, and asked and reasoned. Such a difficult decision. It is difficult enough to decide to change, but to decide what to change to…..

A circle !!! Yes, that was it !! A circle was so round, so jolly, so amiable. It got around so easily, it got on so well with everyone, and no one was ever afraid of it being poked around. Yes, a circle it had to be.

It took a great deal of bending and twisting to get there.It wasn’t exactly easy, especially when it don’t know what’s wrong in the first place, and where it was supposed to stop. But it went along all the same..it cared a lot about being accepted. And then it was done. It became a circle. A decent one for what was once a straight line. It decided to go find out what its friends thought.

Everyone was delighted when they saw the circle the first time…What a splendid change in our friend,they thought. They rolled it around, they bounced off it, they even tossed it in the air and watched it bounce.They had a lot of fun with it in the beginning,but as with all new things, they got tired of it. The “new” circle,after its brief flirtation with popularity and fame, started feeling left out all again.

It wasn’t easy being a circle either,it found. It found that there was a lot of emptiness in there,where there was once nothing. And what was more scary was that it could see that emptiness all the time. It was frighteningly difficult to stop rolling, and it always felt like it would tip over at any time.

It missed the time when it was a line. A straight line. But it was bent. Incorrigibly, irreparably bent. If only there were a way to go back. To go back…

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Just a random musing. All coincidences with existing lines and circles and other shapes are strictly out of the author’s ignorance.